The present invention relates to a modular type computer system, and more particularly to the storage module of a blade server.
A rapid growth in the Internet business increases the processing demand for a computer system with an apparent increase in the management cost.
In general, a server system in the Internet business is built based on a three-tier model in which the system is built in three tiers, front-end, mid-tier, and back-end, to meet each processing need.
A blade server, in which multiple servers are installed densely in one chassis, is used for a front-end server that performs the services of a Web server because the dependence among the servers is low. On the other hand, a standalone SMP (Symmetric Multi Processor) server is used for a back-end server that functions primarily as a DB server because the data processing load is heavy and data integrity must be ensured.
Conventionally, different server devices are used for those functional units to build a system. One of the problems with such a system is that the processing performance cannot be allocated among those server devices and, therefore, the devices must be added or replaced individually to meet a change in the application requirements. In a system that is built based on the conventional method described above, TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) cannot be reduced because the hardware is distributed and it is difficult to improve the server operating rate of the whole system.
To solve the problem described above, the focus of attention is now on the integration of the hardware, especially, on the integration of various server functions that is made possible by the expanded application of a blade server. A conventional blade server, which can contain only one or two built-in disks because of its high-density installation feature, has a limited server application. However, if a flexible disk configuration, such as the RAID configuration or JBOD (Just Bunch of Disks), is used to make it possible to provide a server device that expands the application of each blade server to increase the efficiency of the integration of the distributed hardware, a server device useful for server consolidation will be provided.
Although conventional technologies for a modular type computer system such as a blade server are disclosed, for example, in US2003/0090878A1, US2004/0054780A1, and JP-A-2004-355351, a flexible disk configuration for use in a blade server is not yet disclosed.